Remember Those From Whom You Came Newsletter Of The Clan MacAlpine Society The Worldwide Organization For MacAlpines 2nd Quarter 2017 ~ Volume 36 Commander’s Note The Clan MacAlpine Society was founded nearly twenty years ago with the objectives of identifying and unifying our diaspora, preserving our Scottish heritage, gaining recognition from the Scottish Court of Lord Lyon, and ultimately having a Chief of the Name and Arms of McAlpine, and a Crest. It was a great honor to be at the Lyon Court in Edinburgh to receive the Commission from the Reverend Dr. Joe Morrow, Lord Lyon King of Arms for Scotland. Accompanying me were Society President Dale McAlpine from California, Ian McAlpine and his lovely wife Margaret from Midlothian, and our advisor Dr. Bruce Durie. Lyon made a short presentation of the Commission in his office, and then we all retired for dinner and conversation. With Commission in hand, we are well on our way to our long-term objectives. We have nearly 3,000 members around the world, and we have recognition from the Court. Now is a good time to reflect on what we have accomplished, but also to take measure of what our vision is for the future. To assist with that, I have asked a few folks to help with identifying a few areas that may help preserve our heritage by looking at the potential of offering small scholarships for piping, and dancing. It might also be an opportunity to give back, to think of some effort on a worthy cause in Scotland, perhaps some signage at a location important to the McAlpines, or a donation to the Kilmartin Museum. We will also begin contacting the websites and vendors that need to correct their content to a more accurate description of the McAlpines. If you are interested in getting involved with one of these projects, please let me know. Paraphrasing the Commission, it says the interim Commander should rally the McAlpines. I am committed to that worthy effort. I’ll see you in Fergus. Yours Aye, Michael T McAlpin Kenneth McAlpine William McAlpin Sir William McAlpine Michael McAlpin Finn Alpin Sidney Fay McAlpin Earl Dale McAlpine Bruce McAlpine Wow! We did it. After many years and efforts by the whole family, on April 19th we became a clan. We have a Commander. We have been blessed with Michael McAlpin to lead us into the future. It is not the time to sit back and revel, but the time to steadily continue in to the future. We have much to do. Think about how you can help further the knowledge of our ancestry to our children and future generations. When they look back in history at this momentous occasion, what will they see? Quickly approaching is August 12th and our AGM. This is the first AGM as a clan. Michael will be on the reviewing stand and honored as our new Commander. We hope to see you there celebrating with us. (You can find ticket and lodging information in this newsletter). It such an honor to be part of what we are doing. Attending the derbhfine last September then seeing Michael receive his commission in May makes me so proud to bear the name McAlpine. I'm looking forward to seeing where we go from here. In Kinship, Dale President’s News
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Remember Those From Whom You Came Newsletter Of The Clan MacAlpine Society
The Worldwide Organization For MacAlpines
2nd Quarter 2017 ~ Volume 36
Commander’s Note
The Clan MacAlpine Society was founded nearly twenty
years ago with the objectives of identifying and unifying our
Mac vs Mc And why is the “A” capitalized in names like “McAlpine”, but not the “M” in Macmaster? “Mac” is Gaelic for son. Inconsistencies in records are what led to having both Mc and Mac prefixes. Mc is just an abbreviation of Mac, and both can actually be abbreviated further to the much less common M’. The myth that Mac is Scottish and Mc is Irish is simply not true. Similarly, the assertion that Mac names are Protestant while Mc names are Catholic doesn’t have a shred of truth to it. They both just mean “son of” and have no religious connotation.
Mc and Mac names typically contain a second capital letter, but not always. Since proper nouns are capitalized, you would write “son of Alpin,” not “son of alpin.” In the same way, you would usually write MacAlpin rather than Macalpin, but there are many exceptions. Surnames have been around so long that sometimes they get changed, and in some families, the second capital letter was gotten rid of.
Adding to the confusion, some Mc and Mac names don’t include the name of the father, but the father’s profession. Take someone named John Mcmaster. In this case, John’s father was a master of some sort, therefore John is the “son of a master.” Master is not a proper noun and thus does not need to be capitalized. This practice can be seen in Mcsmith, Mcbaker and Mccook for example. Other Mc and Mac surnames come from some physical feature of the person, such as Macilbowie, which means “son of the blonde man,” while the more recognizable Mackenzie means “son of the fair one.”.
There was also a prefix for “daughter of” but these mostly fell out of favor years ago. The daughter prefix was Nc, short for the Gaelic “nighean mhic.” Surnames for women like NcDonald were fairly popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, but after that time there were only a few secluded mentions of them. To a lesser extent, “Vc” was used to denote “grandson of,” so that a person would have two surnames. Now you might have John MacDonald Vcmaster, but this tradition was never incredibly popular and is not as prevalent today.
These surnames have gone through a lot of changes over the years. Aside from Mac being shortened to Mc, in some cases the prefix was dropped altogether. This happened as Macs and Mcs immigrated to other countries and other parts of their names were changed to be more easily pronounced by the people there.